‘Little details’ helping big man Kanter lift his maligned defense
When Enes Kanter came to the Knicks, one word stood out about his defense. Awful. And that was on the good days. “That was my focus coming out here because there were all these comments, that, ‘Oh, he can score the ball. Offensively he’s at an All-Star level, but defensively he’s bad,’ ” the 6-foot-11 center said Tuesday after the Knicks practiced in Tarrytown. “I just wanted to prove all the haters wrong. My thing was coming here and being really focused on defense.”
He might not be confused with Bill Russell just yet, but Kanter, who has brought scoring (13.8 ppg), rebounding (10.6 rpg) and an infectious emotion, has made defensive strides, doing what he calls “little details” that really are not that little.
“Boxing out. Help-side defense. Pickand-roll coverages. Everything. Those little details. You play 24-second defense then you give up the rebound, that’s another 24 seconds. … Just stay low. Don’t see the ball, always see your man,” Kanter said.
No one seems more appreciative than coach Jeff Hornacek.
“Enes has trust in his teammates if he does his thing like he’s supposed to, that he’s going to get protection on the backside. Our guys have done a great job which has enabled him to trust his instincts when he needs to go help,” Hornacek said. “He kind of understands our rotations now. He’s a smart kid. He’s learning what we want.”
Kanter brings other stuff — like fire and motivation. When LeBron James spoke out on the Knicks drafting Frank Ntilikina over Dennis Smith Jr., it was Kanter who tweeted support of his teammate. Kanter then rushed in when Ntilikina shoved James on the court. Later, Kanter spoke out against the King.
The Ntilikina-James flare-up was not the first time James irked Kanter. Last season James and the Cavs flipped water bottles on the bench late in a blowout against the Knicks. That ticked off Kanter. And he wasn’t even here yet.
“I saw that last year,” Kanter said, “I know I was not here. But I saw that, I just got so pissed. ‘C’mon, you cannot do that.’ It doesn’t matter who, you cannot do that. That’s really disrespectful.” It doesn’t take much to stoke Kanter. “Sometimes I read Twitter comments and everything and I saw we did not win a game against Clippers since 2012,” Kanter said. “I was like this is crazy. We have to change that.
“Bottle-flip game or whatever. Those are the things that just fire me up before the game. … The things like that, ‘OK, this is disrespectful. Let’s just go out there and bury him.’ ”
James got the last laugh at the Garden last week (although the Knicks beat the Cavs in Cleveland last month). But Kanter, with 12 points and 16 rebounds, helped bury the Clippers at the Garden Monday.